


Warmth

by meng_ren



Category: Infinite (Band)
Genre: Action/Adventure, Alternate Universe - Science Fiction, Gen, Giant Robots, Male Friendship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-07
Updated: 2015-04-07
Packaged: 2018-03-21 18:38:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,259
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3702139
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/meng_ren/pseuds/meng_ren
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Myungsoo always found the cocoon of the EVA to be quite comforting. Too bad he never knew it was because Sungyeol was there with him.</p>
<p>(Neon Genesis Evangelion AU)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Warmth

**Author's Note:**

> Please forgive this humble and amateurish entrance into the Infinite fandom. 
> 
> It should be possible to understand this work without knowledge about Neon Genesis Evangelion. Also, it's intended to be gen and not slash, but the friendship symbol "&" doesn't seem to appear in this fandom, while slash is within the realm of interpretation, so "/" is close enough.

“Where are you from?” were the first words Sungyeol ever asked him.

“Old Seoul,” sputtered an embarrassed, ten-year-old Myungsoo.

“Wah, really? You were born there? You should be super old then!” Eleven-year-old Sungyeol responded.

Myungsoo didn’t know how to answer then. It wouldn’t be till years later that he learned to explain to people that he was born in Seoul just before Second Impact submerged the city, that he was saved only by being on a family trip to the countryside, and that he spent most of his life drifting from refugee camp to refugee camp.

“I’m from Yongin—sorry, it’s New Seoul now—but I lived on the outskirts, so I’m really excited about living in New Seoul's GeoFront. How about you?” Sungyeol kept prattling on.

“Um, um,” Myungsoo was barely able to respond, when Sungyeol grabbed his hand.

“Let me show you Restoration Park,” Sungyeol said, leading the two of them off.

 

—

 

Sungyeol lived right by Restoration Park, and it’s there that he and Myungsoo spent much of the next ten years as they grew up together, first playing at the park’s play structures, and then moving on to its baseball diamonds and basketball courts.

Among other things, Restoration Park was one of the few places in the GeoFront where NERV headquarters did not loom menacingly, casting its shadow over New Seoul’s residents. And for whatever reason, Sungyeol disliked NERV in ways that Myungsoo never understood.

“What’s NERV’s purpose, anyways?” Sungyeol once asked, as he sat next to Myungsoo on a park bench, looking at the gleaming steel and concrete pyramid in the distance.

Myungsoo had learned the official reason in school, of course. After Second Impact, when a meteor impact melted the Antarctic ice caps and sent sea levels rising 60 meters, World War III broke out in a fight over scarce resources and engulfed the world in nuclear war. After it was over, global nuclear weapons were banned, and Korea was permitted non-nuclear N2 weapons, to be stored in the GeoFront under auspices of a UN agency called NERV. To keep the weapons safe, the GeoFront was turned into a veritable fortress.

But there was something about NERV that Myungsoo understood unnerved people. NERV’s motto alone was mysterious. Taken from Goethe’s _Prometheus_ , it read _Hier sitz ich, forme Menschen Nach meinem Bilde_ – “Here I sit, forming humans in my image” – displayed underneath NERV’s logo of an eagle and a flame. Myungsoo had no idea what that meant.

The GeoFront supplied NERV’s doctors, engineers, and scientists, but their work was all classified. And so Myungsoo spent his years without learning what the agency did, knowing only that they did something.

“Important stuff,” responded Myungsoo, as he pressed the surface of his phone, playing a game. “Top-secret stuff.”

“Like what? Banned nuclear weapons research? Human experimentation? Aliens?” Sungyeol scoffed. “I’ve lived in the GeoFront for ten years and I don’t know why it’s here. I don’t like NERV.”

Myungsoo said nothing, as he began a boss fight on his phone.

“I think I want to leave the GeoFront,” said Sungyeol, putting his hands behind his head. Myungsoo paused his game.

“Where do you want to go?” He asked Sungyeol, panicking slightly as his friend suggested leaving.

“Maybe I’ll study in Canada or America. Depending on whether my university allows me to transfer,” Sungyeol said.

“That’s good,” Myungsoo responded blandly, hiding his panic. He knew full well that he couldn’t get into a university that Sungyeol could enter. Who was he, an ordinary worker bee, to follow in Sungyeol’s footsteps? The anxiety grew.

“What about you?”

Myungsoo didn’t say anything. His parents and younger brother all lived in the GeoFront, but it wouldn’t be the same without Sungyeol, and their daily trips to Restoration Park, and their intimate yet empty banter. If Sungyeol left, would he pulled away from his home in the GeoFront? If so, how far?

“I don’t know,” Myungsoo said finally, as he stood up to leave. And even though it was exactly noon, he felt like he was standing in NERV’s shadow.

 

—

 

Restoration Park is where Lee Sungyeol, aged 21 years by Western reckoning and 22 years by Korean reckoning, dies, twenty years after Second Impact.

The Korean government officially referred to the event as the First Attack.

For Myungsoo, it is _the_ attack.

He’s in NERV’s Central Medical Laboratory, on the fourth floor of NERV’s HQ, on a tour of the building for a tour. Sungyeol had always told him that they were in the GeoFront, so they should do GeoFront things that all the tourists did. So Myungsoo is there, tagging along a group of visiting scientists, when the alarms ring. It’s the emergency shelter order, and not an uncommon sound in the Geofront. The GeoFront is a large target, and its denizens constantly prepare for the worst.

He is already in NERV HQ, the safest place in New Seoul, and nobody is shooing him away, so Myungsoo stays rooted to his spot in the gallery overlooking the command center on the fourth floor. For the first few hours, he assumes it’s nothing serious, despite the alarms blaring that the situation was not a drill.

_where are you?_ He texts Sungyeol.

_at home heading to the shelter near the park._ Sungyeol responds.

_so bothersome. are you sure this isn’t a drill?_ Sungyeol texts again.

_everyone is NERV HQ is treating it seriously. it must be real._ Myungsoo texts back.

A few minutes later, Sungyeol responds again.

_shelter’s super-crowded. cell phone service is down for everybody else. i don’t know how i’m getting reception._

A minute later another text comes.

_this place is so cramped and smelly i’m going to die._

And then the last.

_ah, my battery is almost dead. stay safe, okay?_

And it is there, on the balcony of NERV’s command center, that Myungsoo first sees the First Angel, fresh from its march from the wastelands north of the 38th Parallel. It is gangly and spindly, a humanoid from the waist up and an arachnid from the waist down. And it shows up on the computer screen the size of a two story building, for Myungsoo to see clearly the Angel is on the outskirts of New Seoul.

And he realizes that the alarm was no drill. But he can’t shake the feeling that he is watching some movie, like the monster movies of his youth, seeing the carnage only through a screen. He doesn’t know it as an Angel then. He only knows it as a monster.

And then he sees the operators, at their computer stations, and he sees the director of the whole operation standing next to him.

One of the six operators yells out. “It walked right through the defensive line at Old Seoul. The tanks and gunships have been firing at it. No damage reported, as predicted. The Army and Air Force are requesting that we deploy the N2 weapons.”

“Are Units 0 and 2 operational?” The director asks, from the balcony next to Myungsoo.

“Unit 0 is now working. Unit 2 is undergoing last minute repairs.” Another operator responds to the query.

“Are their pilots ready?” The director says.

“Yes,” responds somebody.

“Prepare Unit 0 for deployment. Are the evacuations complete?”

“No!” An operator says, and with a few taps at her keyboard an image of New Seoul appears. “The Restoration Park shelter hasn’t retracted into the underground defense area. There’s a technical issue with its doors, so it’s still at ground level.”

And Myungsoo can see the doors of the shelter underneath the park, still open wide.

“What’s its capacity?”

“220 people, but excess people might be causing the issue.”

“Are there any other shelters with issues?”

“No, it’s the only one.”

“Then it’s too late. Deploy an N2 weapon by artillery. If that doesn’t work, send Unit 0 out first. Give Unit 2 the N2 grenades as backup.”

“Director Baek!”

“You heard my orders.”

The room is quiet as the operators, all female, pause for just a second, but resume activity almost immediately.

“The N2 weapon is armed. Permission to broadcast the command code.”

“Permission given.”

“N2 weapon deployed.”

And Myungsoo continues staring at the screen, with its video image of a cannon blasting a projectile all the way to the outskirts of New Seoul. He hears nothing, because there’s no sound, and can only see the projectile trail off, without seeing an impact. But he doesn’t need to, because that second every screen displaying the Angel goes white, and then there’s a fireball, and he can see a telltale mushroom cloud rise up. The HQ shakes with the blast wave.

He hears cheers go up for just a second, but they’re premature, and the room falls silent again with the image of the Angel, sunken into a crater, with chunks of its white skin burned black by the impact, still alive. It sticks an arm out to pull itself out of the crater, and Myungsoo can see just four of the original eight legs intact, but the Angel is moving, pulling itself along with its two arms.

“It’s still moving!”

But the Angel doesn’t go any further. It crawls up into a ball, burying itself partly into the ground.

“Like I thought. It’s regenerating but injured. Get the Units ready now,” snarls the director.

“But the shelter!”

“Forget the shelter.”

The typing resumes furiously, and Myungsoo watches. One eye is on the Angel, and the other is on a new humanoid form on another enormous computer monitor. It’s a giant mechanical robot, black and arched, with long limbs that reach past its knees and a protrusion from the hump in its back. Myungsoo watches as the robot, on some elevator platform, rapidly begins a process of ascending to the surface. It stops at ground level, and the two power lines connected to its back fall off.

“Unit 0 deployed, Director.”

“Have it proceed.”

It’s the first time an Evangelion has ever been deployed in a combat situation. Nobody else can testify to this besides Myungsoo, but to this day he swears he heard the director follow her order by saying “God have mercy.”

Unit 0 races across New Seoul, limbs moving seamlessly as it races towards the balled up Angel. But the Angel responds by sticking its leg outs and swiping at Unit 0, hitting it and causing it to fall.

“EVA Unit 0 is slightly damaged.”

“Condition on the pilot?”

“Pilot Nam Woohyun is uninjured.”

Myungsoo hears the director mutter “Reckless as always” under her breath.

The Unit gets back up and grabs one of the Angel’s legs, and proceeds to rip it off, and to beat the Angel’s spherical form with it. But the Angel retracts its other legs and begins rolling at breakneck pace, speeding past Unit 0 and towards New Seoul.

“What’s going on with Unit 2?”

“Unit 2 is undergoing fueling with its internal batteries.”

“What percentage is it at?”

“45%.”

“Send it out anyways.”

“Director!”

“Do it.”

And Myungsoo watches as another EVA appear on the screen. This one is red with black streaks, and unlike Unit 0 it has a belt of grenades around its waist. This one too rises to the surface on an elevator, and proceeds to walk cautiously towards the direction of the rolling Angel.

As the Angel approaches, the EVA braces its heels against the ground. The rolling doesn’t cease, and Unit 2 grabs the spherical form, stopping it almost in its tracks, though it is forced back. Unit 2 grabs a knife from somewhere, and stabs the Angel with it. But as it does, it tries to slash, and the knife snaps. The Angel then stretches an arm, grabbing Unit 2 by the neck, and throws the EVA against the ground.

The Angel unfurls itself, revealing all eight legs recovered, and begins stumbling forward.

“It’s approaching Restoration Park!”

And Myungsoo can do nothing but watch as the Angel walks towards the shelter, doors to the underground sanctuary still open, and bring a leg down to crush it. The open doors, concrete roof, and greenery of the park over it crumble quickly, and the Angel’s leg sinks down into the ground. Myungsoo can hear the rumble all the way in the NERV HQ.

He hears gasps of horror, including his own.

But with the Angel’s back turned, Unit 2 finds itself with an opportunity. The EVA grabs the Angel by the neck, forcing it backwards. As the Angel reaches an arm back in defense, Unit 0 appears in the image, grabbing the Angel’s wrist, before using the knife in its hand to sever the Angel’s arm.

“Get the Angel out of New Seoul.”

The two EVAs begin dragging the Angel out. In jerky motions, Unit 2 drags the Angel while Unit 0 cuts its limbs off. The two keep up their slicing dance, until the Angel is out of New Seoul’s limits, its bloody limbs bleeding black blood all the way there.

Myungsoo watches as Unit 0 guts the Angel once more. Unit 2 takes an orb from its belt, handing it to Unit 0. Unit 0 takes the N2 weapon and shoves it roughly inside the Angel. The two of them then roll the limbless Angel so the Angel itself is a shield against the blast.

The N2 weapon goes off, and the two EVAs are flung backwards by the force of detonation. The shock wave causes another rumble, smaller this time, and Myungsoo braces himself against a wall, but after the flash ends, the entire room can see there’s nothing left of the Angel except debris scattered over a wide area.

Cheers fill the room, but Myungsoo is still staring in horror at the image of the collapsed shelter. His vision begins to tunnel, black appearing at the edges with the image of the shelter in the center, and he loses consciousness quickly.

 

—

 

Myungsoo wakes up in a hospital bed, hours later, and the first thing he sees is a television screen broadcasting the words “Attack in New Seoul: Tragedy at Emergency Shelter.” The anchor is crying, talking about how the Restoration Park shelter had been overloaded because all the other emergency shelters were under repair on this fateful day.

And Myungsoo grabs his phone on the table next to him, and the moment he looks at it, he can see the first message.

_Yeol’s gone_

He throws the phone against the wall and cries himself to sleep.

 

—

 

When he wakes up, the director is sitting there, legs crossed, and looking weary.

“I’m Baek Eunyoung, NERV’s Director,” she says with a tired smile. “You saw me yesterday.”

“Congratulations,” Myungsoo responds curtly. “For your victory.”

“I had two victories yesterday,” says the director. She reaches to grab Myungsoo’s shoulder. “NERV defeated an Angel. That’s what we’ve named those monsters. And NERV discovered another pilot.”

Myungsoo turned away from her.

“When you passed out, NERV conducted some tests. And we discovered that you have a very rare genetic condition that we need. You see, those things that fought the Angel are Evangelion Units, or EVAs, which only certain people can pilot. You’re one of those people. You can pilot one and help all us,” she says, her voice slightly pleading.

“I don’t want to talk.”

“Please, Kim Myungsoo-ssi,” the woman responds. “People have been trying to reach you. I know about your friend. I’m really sorry for what happened to Lee Sungyeol-ssi.”

Myungsoo feels acid rise in his throat, like he would vomit, but says nothing and nothing happens.

“We have another EVA, Unit 1, ready for you. And we need you, Kim Myungsoo-ssi. If the Angels attack again, we need you to be there,” she said as she patted his arm.

“We needed you here yesterday. Lee Sungyeol-ssi needed you here yesterday. But it’s too late for that, isn’t it? So please, help us so that someone else doesn’t lose their Lee Sungyeol,” says the director, standing up.

“I would like your response by tomorrow,” she states, leaving the door open as she leaves.

Myungsoo just stares at the wall for an hour.

He makes up his mind by the time he gets up.

 

—

 

He knows they would hate to admit it, but Myungsoo becomes a better EVA pilot than the others.

Woohyun hadn’t been training for too long. He piloted Unit 0 because the previous pilot candidate couldn’t handle the pressure. Lee Howon, the pilot of Unit 2, had been training the longest. But Myungsoo learned rapidly to adjust to Unit 1.

“When did you get so good at this?” Woohyun jokes when the EVAs drill.

“I’m not good. You just suck,” Myungsoo banters lightly, whipping out his EVA’s knife.

“How could you say something that mean?” Woohyun responds. “You know my feelings are easily hurt.”

“Knock it off, you lovebirds,” snaps Howon, getting between them and disarming Woohyun’s EVA with ease.

Myungsoo jumps back as Howon’s unit approached, and he does a swipe kick with his EVA that knocks the legs out from under Unit 2.

“No fair,” says Howon with a laugh. “I was dealing with Woohyun.”

The three of them laugh once again, Myungsoo the hardest.

It’s surprisingly easy to laugh in the darkness of the cockpit, despite the cramped and gloomy atmosphere, because the communications make the pilots feel that they’re right there next to each other. Connected, even. But in reality, they’re separate, each sitting in a chamber barely larger than a coffin. Surrounding the cockpit is a layer of viscous fluid, meant to absorb shocks. Woohyun had named the fluid layer “the womb” but Howon recoiled in disgust at that name and vetoed it. Myungsoo preferred Howon’s name for it, “the cocoon,” instead.

 

—

 

Myungsoo learns to work with Woohyun and Howon as a team, and they decimate the Angels.

The Angels attack by various ways. The Second Angel rises from the sea to land near what was once Incheon, and Myungsoo finds himself in combat for the first time. The foe is a massive frog-like creature which belches acid at the three units. Initially, Myungsoo races to fight it, but Howon is quick to persuade him otherwise. They defeat the Angel without using the N2 mine, as Myungsoo slices the Angel’s chest apart and literally rips out its heart.

The Third Angel is a swarm of flying wasps each the size of a car, with no discernible heart. It’’s Myungsoo who suggests, while destroying them, that there must be a queen bee amongst them. It’s Howon who spots a larger wasp the size of a bus, and Myungsoo who kills it with his knife.

The Fourth Angel is a giant burrowing centipede. Howon gets this one, by predicting where it’s going to emerge, and throwing an N2 mine into a hole just as the Angel emerges from it.

The Fifth Angel is a spinning top, destroying anything it comes into contact with. Woohyun takes credit for destroying it, by using power cables to grab hold of it and reverse its rotation long enough for him to cut it apart.

The Sixth Angel is a collection of portals. No sooner does one EVA unit jump through then does it emerge from another portal. The three defeat it by jumping through one portal all at once. The Angel spits out Myungsoo and then Woohyun, but Howon stays inside long enough to cut it apart from the inside.

The Seventh Angel is a flying bird, raining explosive feathers. The operators realize that the feathers’ explosion can be delayed by cold. Myungsoo and Woohyun blast the feathers with liquid nitrogen, allowing Howon to hurl the feathers back and destroy the Angel.

The Eighth Angel is a doppelganger. It looks exactly like Unit 1. Myungsoo sits out this battle. Woohyun and Howon fight it, using their knowledge of how Myungsoo fought, and tear it apart with their bare hands.

The Ninth Angel is a whale. Myungsoo, Howon, and Woohyun use specially designed harpoon guns to strike it when it surfaces to breath, and then beach it to kill it.

The Tenth Angel is either a set of particles or tiny robots which take over NERV’s orbital weaponized satellites. The satellites then rain down laser beams over New Seoul. It takes Howon with a very specialized mirror and the operators with some very advanced calculations to reflect the beams back towards space, destroying the satellites.

 

—

 

And it’s in the cocoon during all these battles that Myungsoo feels the closest to Sungyeol. He can’t say why. It has nothing to do with what he is doing with the EVA, the enormous purple armored contraption he is controlling. Maybe it’s because he wouldn’t be there if it weren’t for losing Sungyeol. But at other times, he feels that Unit 1 pushes him further the way Sungyeol did. To work harder, to do the best he can. Even when he’s overwhelmed by what the EVA involves, with its various controls and its jerky movements and his brain synchronizing with the machine, he almost always feels like he’s certainly in control.

It’s a complex feeling, when Myungsoo sometimes feels that Unit 1 is moving beyond his control. Perhaps it’s a matter of reflexes, but Myungsoo is never sure. The Unit seems almost protective of him. In the battle against the Fourth Angel, the Unit managed to avoid attacks by the Angel’s legs even when Myungsoo wasn’t quick enough to evade. When he tried to stab the Fifth Angel, he thinks the Unit kept him from getting too close to the blades. When he tried to leap at the Seventh Angel, it was the Unit that flinched, keeping him grounded and saving him from the barrage of explosives had he leapt.

Myungsoo eventually asks Woohyun and Howon if they’ve ever felt something similar. Woohyun replies in the affirmative, that the Unit seems to know what to do before he wants to do it, but Howon hedges his answer. He says he feels that his Unit never makes up its mind, like it can’t decide on a single course of action.

But Myungsoo never asks them whether their Units remind them of a friend. He never asks why they decided to be pilots anyways, even if he knows how long they were pilots. The answers would surprise him.

But he never asks because he doesn’t need to ask. Sitting there in the cockpit, surrounded by the warmth of the cocoon, Myungsoo finds himself in the one place where he’s comfortable. Why does it matter to him that he’s reminded of Sungyeol?

 

—

 

He’s sitting in the cockpit again, taking a short rest, when he dozes off. And Myungsoo sees Sungyeol one more time, in a dream.

He’s sitting at Restoration Park when Sungyeol walks up to him, handing him a popsicle. It’s sometime in the fall, and a cool wind is blowing.

“I haven’t seen you in a while,” says Sungyeol, smiling.

“Same,” smiles Myungsoo, taking the popsicle.

“Have you eaten well?” Sungyeol says, sitting besides Myungsoo.

Myungsoo nods, happily.

“And are you having fun as an EVA pilot?” Sungyeol asks.

“How did you know?”

“Why does it matter? You’re in a dream.”

Myungsoo gives a soft “Oh” and stares at his popsicle. It changes color from a strawberry red to a vanilla white right before his eyes, and then back again.

“Yes,” says Myungsoo assertively. He takes a bite and its flavor goes from blueberry to peach. Some dream he was having.

“And you like Woohyun and Howon?”

“Yeah, they’re great.”

“And NERV?”

Myungsoo frowns. “You don’t like NERV.”

“I’m dead. Who cares?”

“Don’t say that!”

“Why not? Are you going to say something sappy, like ‘You’re not dead. You’re always here with me’?”

“Yeol, I—”

“It’s okay, Soo. I know I’m dead.”

The two of them sit in silence, watching the NERV building.

“I’m sorry I couldn’t tell you goodbye,” Sungyeol says, turning to look at Myungsoo once more, who looks back, surprised.

“That’s not your fault!”

“I know,” Sungyeol smiles, and he looks away.

They sit in silence next to each other, and Myungsoo dreams that the sun is setting, as the park goes dim around them. It becomes night time, and the whole city is dark. Only a streetlight above them provides illumination.

“Goodbye, Kim Myungsoo,” Sungyeol says finally, getting up from the bench, not looking back.

And Myungsoo wants to say something, but the image of Sungyeol is already disappearing into the darkness of his dream. He reaches out a hand, but the image is gone.

 

—

 

“What do you have to say before the tribunal, Director Baek? You allowed an Angel into New Seoul—”

“—then allowed it to kill hundreds of civilians—”

“—particularly targeting this Lee Sungyeol to make him part of Unit 1—”

“—in order to persuade one man, Kim Myungsoo, to become an EVA Pilot.”

“And look at your backup plan—”

“—where you would have switched Lee Sungyeol and Kim Myungsoo—”

“We very well could have Sungyeol as the EVA pilot—”

“—And Myungsoo’s body fusing with Unit 1 and the protective fluid instead—”

The voices of the NERV’s governing committee blended into one another as the disembodied voices began criticizing the director all at once.

The director was silent until the members finished talking.

“Getting Nam Woohyun cost us Kim Sunggyu. Getting Lee Howon cost us Jang Dongwoo and Lee Sungjong. Everything we do has a cost,” she finally responded.

More silence.

“Look at his performance combat. He’s worth the lives. Salvation is at hand, ladies and gentlemen, and I think you’ll find it was worth your time.”

**Author's Note:**

> This ignorant and unworthy writer humbly requests feedback.


End file.
